It’s match day at St John’s Regional College in Dandenong and four soccer games are underway on the school’s bright green, full-sized synthetic turf pitch. The verdant surface shines in midday sun as students dribble, pass and let fly goalward with unabashed enthusiasm.
Watching from the sidelines is Shelley Isles, St John’s Business Manager.
“The creek used to run through this part of the school and most of the time it was just mud,” recalls Shelley.
All that changed in 2019 with completion of Stage 1 of a Masterplan redevelopment, that includes new administration facilities, a staff lounge, and the all-weather soccer pitch.
Opened in 1958 as a boys’ college by the De La Salle Brothers, St Johns Regional College became co-educational after amalgamation with the Presentation Sister’s St Angela’s Girls School in 1974, and for 65 years has been a valued member of its community.
Covering approximately 20 hectares, the school serves families from five parishes in Melbourne’s multicultural southeast and incorporates about twenty students from St Mary’s School for the Deaf.
Sharing their facilities is part of the school’s ethos and the soccer ground development, facilitated with a $6.35 million loan from CDF, has led to further community engagement; including hosting the Paul Wade Cup (named after former St John’s Regional College school captain and Australian Socceroo), where over 200 primary school students come together from St Mary’s Dandenong, Holy Family Doveton, St Paul Apostle North and St Paul Apostle South Endeavour Hills, St Anthony’s Noble Park, Resurrection Keysborough, St Gerards Dandenong North, St Kevin’s Hampton Park and St Francis De Sales Lynbrook.
"Dandenong City have partnered with us to run our vocational Sports and Recreation learning programs where students work with professional coaches and gain experience refereeing, it’s an amazing experience for them."
Shelley Isles, Business Manager at St John's Regional College
“A gala day like that is only possible because of the quality of the pitch, so it’s great to see the wider community enjoying the ground,” says Shelley.
The development has also enabled partnerships with Olympicos Melbourne, a philanthropic program that facilitates young players create connections with European leagues, and local professional outfit Dandenong City Soccer Club.
“Dandenong City have partnered with us to run our vocational Sports and Recreation learning programs where students work with professional coaches and gain experience refereeing, it’s an amazing experience for them,” says Shelley.
As the college moves through its Master Plan redevelopment, opportunities for meaningful community engagement have flourished, and Paul Colvin, St John’s Head of STEM, positively beams as he walks through the school’s new Junior STEM hub.
Completed in 2022 the $5million two-storey glass, steel, and brick Stage 2 development features two ‘super labs’ – large spaces with room for a class at each end and a central collaboration area for hands on work.
“The buildings support our focus on project-based learning where students have access to all sorts of materials and apply their knowledge from a range of disciplines when completing a task”, says Paul.
Polished concrete floors encourage mess making in the name of learning and the affectionally known ‘Wall of Everything’ provides an array of materials for students to choose from when building their projects.
“Having it laid out this way means kids are willing to take risks - they have all sorts of material on hand so they can go large, they can imagine a bigger result, they build something. Even the kids who might have normally struggled a bit go above and beyond, it’s great for their confidence,” says Paul.
Supported by CDF, the new facilities have created further opportunities for the school to give back to its community by holding ‘science days’ for local primary schools.
“We do cool experiments with them to fire their imagination around science and technology. It’s aimed right at their level and excites them about coming to high school and staying engaged,” explains Paul.
St John’s willingness to share its facilities with the broader community is central to its mission of providing young people with opportunities to challenge themselves.
“The buildings support our focus on project-based learning where students have access to all sorts of materials and apply their knowledge from a range of disciplines when completing a task”
Paul Colvin, Head of STEM at St John's Regional College
Aware that education cannot be a ‘one size fits all’ approach the school believes all pathways are valid including VCE and Vocational Majors.
Stage 3 of the Master Plan includes a refurbishment of an existing two-storey building to support vocational learning programs, again with the support of CDF.
“It starts with careers counselling and is about partnerships with industry. We want to recognise individual abilities, keep kids at school and support them to be life ready no matter what learning pathway they choose,” says Shelley.
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CDPF Limited, a company established by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has indemnified the Catholic Development Fund ABN 15 274 943 760 (the Fund) against any liability arising out of a claim by investors in the Fund. In practice, this means your investment is backed by the assets of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. The Fund is required by law to make the following disclosure. Investment in the Fund is only intended to attract investors whose primary purpose for making their investment is to support the charitable purposes of the Fund. Investors’ funds will be used to generate a return to the Fund that will be applied to further the charitable works of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and the Dioceses of Sale and Bunbury. The Fund is not prudentially supervised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority nor has it been examined or approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). An investor in the Fund will not receive the benefit of the financial claims scheme or the depositor protection provisions in the Banking Act 1959 (Cth). The investments that the Fund offers are not subject to the usual protections for investors under the Corporations Act (Cth) or regulation by ASIC. Investors may be unable to get some or all of their money back when the investor expects or at all and investments in the Fund are not comparable to investments with banks, finance companies or fund managers. The Fund’s identification statement may be viewed here or by contacting the Fund. The Fund does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.
